The present invention relates to a crusty or specialty type bread product and the method of manufacturing the same. A crusty or specialty bread product is exemplified by the traditional French bread, i.e., a bread being rather doughy on the inside, yet light, and having a harder crust on the outside. It is a principal thrust of the invention disclosed herein to provide a specialty or crusty bread to the end user which can be at least in part baked on the end user's premises. This provides the end user with a delicious product which he feels was "baked on the premises" and in addition it provides a sense of the freshly baked aroma of bread. It is a significant advance over merely reheated breads which have already been fully baked and then frozen.
Neighborhood bakeries, supermarket in-store bakeries, and specialty and gourmet shops are seeking to appeal to end users with a fresh baked line of authentic French and other hard crusted breads. The method disclosed herein only requires about 10 to 15 minutes to "finish off" the bread by baking the already partially baked dough in any type of oven, whether it is a domestic oven, a confection oven, a semi-industrial oven, etc., but not however a microwave oven.
Independent of whether the product is placed into the finishing oven in a fully frozen state, a thawed and then refrigerated state or a thawed and stored at room temperature state, upon finishing the baking the result is a spectacular, fresh baked product that retains its freshness for up to about 24 hours and unlike products advertised as "brown and serve" the bread product produced hereby has been fully proofed, cut, steamed and baked to about 84% of the approximate baking time, in ovens where the humidity has been precisely controlled.